Portrait of my friend Youssef on our way to the studio
(that’s what we thought)
18 mm (27 mm FF equivalent) isn’t the best portrait lens at all and yes, the editing is poor 😉 and uses far too much vignetting… but for us, this portrait of Youssef in the morning sun is legendary. Maybe it’s because there was this special light, maybe it’s because 10 min later, Youssef was in cuffs and we had a free ride in a police car, but that’s another story.
Working with a fixed focal length not only is about having a larger aperture and coming more light in, mainly it is about you getting aware of how to look at your subject and how you vision perspective. Getting used to a certain focal length automatically leads you to plan the perspective more carefully. In my mind, it is more about developing your seeing than using technical advantages of less depth of field and so on. And as you may expect – it is all about you and your vision, your voice, your attitude, not the gear.
How to choose your preferred focal length
If you are using Adobe Lightroom or any other image catalogue software that allows to filter meta data from the exif information, you can have a look at your photos, sorted by focal length. By switching between different focal lengths, you can have an overview on how many shots you took with a certain value. You also can compare different scenarios and subjects. If most of your images are within a certain range of focal length, you can easily switch to a fixed focal length corresponding to your favourite choice.
Which is your favorite focal length?
Spend at least one hour with a fixed focal length of your choice (and avoid getting arrested for it).
Please post your result in the comments below and reflect the following questions:
- What worked fine for you?
- What was hard?
- What surprised you?
- What have you learned?
Challenge yourself and train your skills.
Aquire knowledge, work with coaching tools and change your vision.
Connect with peers, share your passion and learn from each other.